Derya Yıldırım

“Folk music is not nostalgia. It is not a frozen tradition that just needs to be preserved. It is movement, change, expression - a mirror of society.” Derya Yıldırım stands for precisely this attitude: for music that tells stories, that is passed on, re-perceived and redefined with every voice that sings it.

As a singer, multi-instrumentalist and composer, Yıldırım has established herself as one of the most important voices in the contemporary Anatolian music scene. Growing up in a family where music was part of everyday life, she learned to play instruments such as the piano, guitar, ud, saxophone and bağlama as a child. Her first experiences with the bağlama were not on stage, but in the midst of family home music - with songs that had been passed down for generations. But her musical journey took her far beyond the private sphere: she studied at the Hamburg University of Music and Performing Arts from 2013 to 2016 and graduated in 2020 with a degree in bağlama from Taner Akyol at the Berlin University of the Arts. She has been passing on her knowledge as a lecturer at the Popakademie Baden-Württemberg since 2024.

With her international band Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek, she has created a unique combination of Anatolian folk music with psychedelia, jazz and funk influences. The band was celebrated as the “new German-Anatolian psycho-pop sensation” and released several albums on their own. Their fourth album Yarın Yoksa (German: Wenn es kein Morgen gibt) was released in March 2025 on the renowned New York label Big Crown Records. Produced by Leon Michels (El Michels Affair) at Diamond Mine Studios in Queens, New York, the album combines mostly original compositions with three reinterpreted traditional songs - a mix that reflects Yıldırım's artistic vision: Folk music as a mirror of society and a driving force of musical development. The album release show in March 2025 took place in the Great Hall of the Elbphilharmonie, together with Ensemble Resonanz.

But Yıldırım also goes her own way as a solo artist. In her solo concerts, she returns to the essence: voice and bağlama. She does not reinterpret folk songs, but lets them live on - in a space without genre boundaries. Her aim is to establish the bağlama as a fully-fledged concert instrument, beyond folkloristic niches. “The bağlama belongs on the big concert stages, not as an exotic instrument, but as a natural part of the local musical landscape,” she says. Her music tells of longing and resistance, of migration and identity - of stories that must not be lost.

Yıldırım has been working with Ensemble Resonanz since 2015. Her project Derya's Songbook, which was launched in 2019 with world premieres at the Elbphilharmonie, introduced traditional Anatolian music into new contexts and combined it with contemporary compositions. She is also active in the field of contemporary music and music theater: in autumn 2024, she worked with the renowned ERMA Ensemble in Cologne. From January to April 2024, she was also on stage as a musician and performer in the production Haydar tanzt at the Neuköllner Oper. Due to popular demand, the piece will be performed again in March and April 2025.

Another field in which Yıldırım is increasingly developing is film music. After initial experience composing individual scenes, for example for The Russian Who Loves Birches (2022) by Pola Beck, she took on the complete musical design of a film for the first time in 2024. She composed, produced and recorded the entire soundtrack for the documentary Die Möllner Briefe by Martina Priessner, which celebrated its world premiere at the Berlinale in February 2025. She was also featured as a musician and protagonist in the highly acclaimed music documentary Aşk, Mark ve Ölüm - Liebe, D-Mark und Tod by Cem Kaya.

In addition to her musical projects, Yıldırım is committed to promoting Anatolian music and actively supports young musicians. Since 2024, she has been a regular jury member at the German youth competition Jugend musiziert in Bağlama. She also recorded an exclusive mix with her band for London's cult radio station NTS.

For Yıldırım, the bağlama is “like a good companion” and music is “a mediation tool that drives her forward”. Her musical journey is an ongoing dialog between past, present and future - sometimes tender and melancholic, sometimes powerful and rousing. She brings the rich traditional music of Anatolia into ever new contexts and onto ever bigger stages, without losing sight of its roots.

https://www.deryayildirimmusic.com/